Education experience
2015-- , Professor of Chemistry, Boston College
2010--2015, Professor of Chemistry,University of South Florida.
2006--2010, Associate Professor of Chemistry inUniversity of South Florida.
2001--2006, Independent career as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee.
1996--2001, Postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Postdoctoral Fellow,first with Prof. Stephen Lippard and then with Prof. Stephen Buchwald
1996, received Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of Prof. Bradford Wayland.
Research
Our research program has centered on the development of fundamentally new catalytic systems for stereoselective chemical transformations and their applications for practical synthesis of organic molecules. We are particularly interested in developing one-electron catalytic approaches for homolytic radical chemistry to harness the vast potential of radical reactions for stereoselective construction of molecular structures. To this end, we have formulated “Metalloradical Catalysis” (MRC) as a concept to guide the development of general approaches for controlling reactivity and selectivity of various radical processes. For achieving enantioselective radical reactions, we have developed a family of unique chiral metalloradical catalysts based on structurally well-defined Co(II) complexes of D2-symmetric chiral porphyrins with tunable electronic, steric, and chiral environments. These Co(II)-based metalloradical catalysts have shown to be highly effective for a wide range of stereoselective organic reactions. Due to their distinctive radical mechanisms that involve unprecedented metal-stabilized radical intermediates, such as α-metalloalkyl radicals (also known as metallocarbene radicals) and ɑ-metalloaminyl radicals (also known as metallonitrene radicals), the Co(II)-based metalloradical systems enable addressing some long-standing challenges in these important organic transformations.
Selected Honors and Awards
NSF CAREER Award, 2006
ORAU Ralph Powe Faculty Award, 2003
NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1996
